Super Affiliate, Lynn Terry On The Hot Seat: “If I Had To Start All Over Again…”

Today I have the pleasure to present to you a very successful and highly respected affiliate marketer who I really respect and admire in this industry, by the name of Lynn Terry. Lynn has done incredibly well to build a wildly successful business in a reasonably short time online, from when affiliate marketing was not even mainstream and blogging practically did not exist. Lynn has continued to wax stronger and stay relevant in the industry 14 years after.

I accidentally landed on Lynn’s blog (clicknewz.com) not long ago, while Googling for some specific affiliate marketing tactics and the moment I got there I was virtually glued to your posts – tons of extremely detailed affiliate marketing guides for different levels of readers – beginners to advanced. That first day alone, I spent over an hour reading and soaking from Lynn’s contents because I found answers to a lot of questions I had in my virtual parking lot. I have already started implementing some of Lynn terry’s tutorials.

I must tell you, Lynn’s blog posts are absolutely amazing, more complete and valuable than a lot of paid products. That same day I took to finding out more about Lynn Terry, and was surprised that I was close to one of the few people who did not know who Lynn Terry, the Super Affiliate, was.

The Affiliate Marketing Interview Highlights

In this interview, we’re going to pick a bit of Lynn Terry’s brain, with her permission, to peek at the backend of her business and learn short-cuts, tips and tricks that we can take action to spring-board our own affiliate internet marketing businesses from off the ground to the top (where it should be). In this super affiliate interview, Lynn Terry will also let us in on some vital secrets to building and affiliate marketing business from scratch and how a new affiliate marketer can quickly start making money from affiliate marketing.

Lynn Terry Reveals A Quick Start Secret To Making Your First 1k Dollars In 90 Days From Affiliate Marketing

Lynn, welcome to the interview and thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to be in this interview. I’m super excited to have you in the hot seat here today, to talk about affiliate marketing fast start and short-cuts to success with affiliate marketing.

Thank you, Stella! I’m excited to meet your readers, and share the details of my business and my success online. I appreciate the opportunity!

Maybe we should just start out by having you give us a little introduction about who you are; tell us about your business and if you may, share your own startup story and, for the sake of the readers define what is affiliate marketing as well?

I’ll start with Affiliate Marketing – because it’s my favorite topic.

Affiliate Marketing is very much like a traditional commission-based sales job. You earn commission for sales you refer. Online you do this by connecting markets with products, or connecting merchants with markets. I create affiliate sites around topics, optimize them to rank well in the major search engines for things people are searching, and help people find exactly what they are looking for online. When they purchase the product, I earn a commission.

While Affiliate Marketing is the primary source of my online income now, it wasn’t the business model I started with. My first venture was a local service based business, a Web Development company. I had no experience or education in the field, but picked it up very fast and turned that into a successful business. I was an affiliate for various companies my clients worked with – hosting, merchant accounts, domain registrars, software vendors, etc.

When my son became ill and I needed to be home full-time, I chose to move more toward the Affiliate Marketing model so that I could scale my income – and basically earn more working less hours, so I could be more available as a mother. It was a tough transition as I loved my original business. But in the end it was the best move I could have ever made.

Having seen and practiced affiliate marketing over the past 10 years, you’ve seen the old and the new. What are the clearly distinct differences between affiliate marketing then and now, and what are the major changes over the years.

One of the major differences in the last decade is the sheer size of the buying market, and how much more savvy online shoppers are now than they were then. Ten years ago it was more of a clicks & eyeballs game, but now you can micro-target very specific markets and sub-markets which results in much higher conversion rates.

Another interesting change is the success of brands and social marketing. Many niche affiliate marketers in the early 2000’s were “faceless” for the most part – working anonymously behind their websites. In the last few years faces started to emerge across various niches, and the Market Leaders stepped forward to dominate their niche.

Consider that you could go online and shop at Dell.com anytime, and interact with their customer service system via email even. But now you can talk to a live person @DellCares on Twitter – and all of a sudden Dell has a face and a voice, and becomes much more personal. Niche marketers (“the little guys”) are taking the same approach. And very successfully, I might add.

Lynn, you’ve been in online marketing for 14 years and I know many people reading this are into affiliate marketing – quite competitive. Having started from somewhere and struggled like any ordinary person who may be reading this, when did it all start snow-balling for you – what was your tipping point and what did you do to stay consistent on top of your game (income and productivity wise)?

Lynn Terry: Great question. My first year doing Niche Affiliate Marketing full time was full of ups and downs. And I mean dramatic rise and fall in terms of time invested, income earned, adjusting to industry changes, etc. I did very well financially that first year in my chosen niches, but it was a major learning process.

After that I decided to focus on multiple streams of income, and more specifically: passive income sources. Passive Income is money that continues to come in even when you’re not actively working. And yes “making money in your sleep” really does happen. After you invest the time to build that model, of course.

Getting your income and productivity to pan out consistently takes a little time. The best advice I can offer is to dig in, get your hands dirty, and make some mistakes. It’s the best (only?) way to learn what you do and don’t want to do, and what direction you want to move in next.

One thing that beginners usually struggle with before they start out with blogging for affiliate marketing is ‘what to sell’ and ‘what to blog about’. From your personal experience, what advice do you have for that person in that situation right now?

My advice is to choose your niche (your topic) carefully. Consider what you enjoy, and how you most want to spend your time. Don’t choose a niche based on numbers alone, but also consider the enjoyment factor. As much of our adult lives as we spend at our career… it might as well be fun!

I advise people to choose a niche and a business model that will help them achieve their ideal lifestyle. If you have always wanted to travel, but haven’t had the opportunity, that’s a great topic to consider. If you absolutely love baking more than anything in the world, make it your business. It’s not necessarily about what you’re good at or experienced in so much as what you *wish* you could do.
Starting a business in that niche could very easily lead to having the lifestyle you always dreamed of – but felt was just out of your reach.

Let’s take a hypothetical scenario, that you were where most of the readers are right now. If you had to start all over again from scratch (hypothetically), how would you rebuild your business tomorrow if all you had to do it was less than 100 dollars (and no list, no contacts, nothing)? What would your first 30 days of activity look like?

I get this question a lot, and to be fair – I actually do this a lot. Most of the new websites I start as an affiliate are done under a pen name. And that pen name has no list, no contacts, and no credibility starting out.

It only takes around $10 to start an online business. The rest can be achieved with time and energy. That $10 will get you a hosting account and domain name (if you shop around for a hosting coupon code). You can install WordPress on your host, use a free WordPress theme, and have a “website” (or blog) up in under an hour.

Next I would register accounts at: YouTube, Gmail, Twitter, Facebook, etc. It’s important to secure your brand and have those things in place for when you’re ready to use them.

My first 30 days would be spent creating content, researching the Market Leaders in my niche, considering ways to “leverage the competition”, getting quality inbound links, and getting involved in the social discussions around the web (Twitter, forums, etc).

Again, still on the question of ‘if you had to start all over again’, how long could you realistically take to make your first sale and then your first thousand dollars, and how would you do it – can you take us through the process?

In most cases, I’ve made my first sale(s) within the first 7-10 days. I optimize my web pages for long tail (very specific, non-competitive) keyword phrases and work hard to get those ranking quick. I have also used paid search engine advertising in the past to get things kick-started, such as Google Adwords.

How long it would take to earn $1,000 in affiliate commission depends on the market depth, the product, the commission rate, etc – a number of variables. On average I would say around 3-6 months, but that’s a very broad estimate. It really depends on the type of product and the market, and what kind of marketing campaign you use.

Having made that first sale and first thousand dollars, what steps and priorities would you take to consistently generate above the thousand dollar income monthly?

Consistent income comes from consistent work.

It may take a good year for your website to get established in the major search engines, and for you to establish yourself in the market. It can take a lot less time of course, but it should never take more. The key is to remain consistent, and to remain present in the market.

Personally, I would put in all the hours I could to keep things moving forward as quickly as possible. My top priority would be building relationships, creating great content, and getting top search engine rankings.

You do a lot of physical goods affiliate marketing, which most people are not doing for some reason as eBooks and other forms of info products seem to be most popularly promoted by practicing affiliate marketers. Why did you choose to promote physical products as an affiliate?

I love marketing physical products. I like the concept of selling real products to real people. It’s the opposite end of the spectrum from selling nothing (or selling a dream) to anyone who will bite – which just feels smarmy to me. And then in between the two, you have quality info products. I promote those as an affiliate as well, but they require more of a pre-sell and they tend to have a lower conversion rate.

Physical products don’t require much of a pre-sell. People get online and search for the products they want to buy, and are basically already pre-sold and in buying mode. Not the case with selling information.

I am a HUGE online shopper myself, which is what prompted my interest in physical products. There are very few things in my home that weren’t ordered online – from clothes to furniture.

Lynn, you’ve been doing affiliate marketing successfully for 14 years, no doubt you’re the best go-to person for anyone who wants a compressed short-cut to keeping it simple and to what works and is quick to implement. Now let’s talk about your best ways you would take to find the right market niches with lots of ready and able buyers and how to find hot sellable affiliate products to promote and how to research the topics to blog about to drive affiliate sales?

If, hypothetically, you must go on a 60 days trip to an island and you could only take 3 of your business tools along to continue building your business, what would they be? If you have some paid and some free ones that would be great.

I would take my Droid X, which is my smart phone, as I can practically manage my entire online business from that one device. I would also take my 13″ Macbook Pro because it’s both portable and powerful. I would most likely take my video camera along as well, because an island vacation setting would make for great videos!

Most of the software and tools I use, other than my hardware, are free and web-based. So they are available from any device, anywhere. That includes things like WordTracker, Skype, WordPress and Gmail.

In your 14 years of making a living from promoting affiliate products and marketing your business online what is the one biggest mistake that you’ve learned the most from? What would you do differently today?

The biggest mistake I made early on was being “too general”. Not targeting micro-niches with very specific (relevant) promotions. I learned quickly that the tighter the niche and marketing, the higher the conversion rates would be. It takes much less work to target a smaller market, and you get a much higher ROI.

I was listening to your interview with Paul Evans, where you were talking about the value of comments and the currency of a blog. That is something that I have been trying silently to understand, and have seen it discussed on some blogs. Can you enlighten us more on this?

I believe Paul and I were discussing the misperception that “comments are the currency of a blog” – meaning, bloggers often stress over a lack of comments on their posts and put a lot of energy into trying to improve that.

Instead, the focus should be on making sales. Or at the very least, building your list. Step back and consider the ONE action you really want a visitor to take when they land on any given page of your site/blog… and focus on making that obvious to your visitors.

If all you want is comments, then ask for them. Engage your readers and ask their thoughts on the topic. But if the objective is to encourage them to click on an affiliate link (leaving your blog) – by all means, let them click!

What advice would you give to your best friend, family member or anyone looking to be like you, but trying to figure out how to make money online as an affiliate marketer or looking to improve their monthly online business revenue?

I always tell them upfront that it’s a business – that it takes work to become successful, and a serious investment of time and energy. Not everyone is cut out to be an entrepreneur, and so I usually walk them through the various models and options.

What advice would you give to your best friend, family member or anyone looking to be like you, but trying to figure out how to make money online as an affiliate marketer or looking to improve their monthly online business revenue?

I always tell them upfront that it’s a business – that it takes work to become successful, and a serious investment of time and energy. Not everyone is cut out to be an entrepreneur, and so I usually walk them through the various models and options.

There are so many ways to make money online – and good money, at that. There are online jobs and other work from home options for those that aren’t ready for a full blown business. That’s how my own son started out, which lead to him landing a great job and starting his own business – all by the age of 19.

One last thing Lynn, with so much firsthand experience promoting affiliate products and programs, apart from your blog, in what ways can anyone who wants to learn the ‘Lynn Terry way’ get closer to soaking up from what you know, what you do and how you do it?

My blog is probably the best all-in-one source for everything I am doing or offering. I would invite you to subscribe by email so you can get timely updates. It will simply send you an email about the latest posts each Monday morning. That’s the easiest and best way to stay in the loop.

I also have a book coming out in August 2011, and you can get on the notification list if you want to be the first to know when it becomes available on Amazon: AffiliateStarterGuide

On this note, I just want to say thank you so much for your time and for just really openly sharing so much information here. I know I got a lot out of it. I think everyone reading this now enjoyed it. I just want to say how much we appreciate you. Thanks again for that.

Thank you Stella – and thanks to all of you who read along! It’s been fun sharing a bit about my life and business. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Thank you so much Lynn. I’m so happy that you could find time out of your busy schedule to talk to us, today, about affiliate marketing secrets and the quick smart tips a super affiliate would take to cut the usual beginners’ mistakes to quickly start making money through affiliate marketing.

In case you want to get more of Lynn Terry, below are the best ways to reach her online.

Like I said, I’ve learned so much from Lynn Terry in a short while. Her blog has got a lot of useful, detailed tutorial style contents – most are better than some paid contents. You’ll be doing yourself some good by mining into her blog for any topic on affiliate marketing and internet marketing.

Subscribe to Lynn’s blog to learn the awesome goodness she sends to us (he subscribers) every week

I bet Lynn Terry’s “Affiliate Starter Guide” will contain a lot of detailed underground affiliate marketing secrets PLUS Lynn’s SEO twists. So be sure to use the link above to get notified as soon as that book is out.

Before you go, I’d like you to do 2 things for me:

Share this interview: Help a friend learn more about affiliate marketing short-cuts from super affiliate, Lynn Terry. Kindly email it to a friend, tweet it, Facebook it, Digg it, Stumble it… The easy share buttons below make sharing as easy as one mouse click:)

Comment: You know I love to see your footprint (comments) to let me know you were here. Please leave me a comment – tell me if you liked or did not like this interview and what you enjoyed most from reading this.

Again, thanks for reading and I’ll see you on the comments side:)

Stella

P.S: Would you like to learn about physical goods affiliate marketing (as well as for digital goods), over the shoulders, of a top Amazon and Clickbank earner? This is one of the best, beginner and any-level step by step, video training affiliate marketing courses out there.

Having done affiliate marketing for all those years. I think she is in a very good position to advice all those who are new into affiliate marketing. Just as she has put it it may not be easy at first but with time things work out.

Wonderful interview. It feels so good to get concepts of affiliate marketing directly from Lynn . Sometimes interviews like these can be a great morale booster. Knowing that Lynn has walked the same path and has been amazingly successful gives the motivation to continue with my own efforts.

You’re welcome, Armanda:
I’m glad you, like me, got some reassurances from that interview. Yes, Lynn Terry has been in the affiliate marketing business longer than most marketers (over 10 years) and she still is. Thus, her advice are based on what’s working for her all these years. I also find that she is very open with giving more than enough details that you can take home, implement and see results for yourself.

Good job, Armanda – you have one of the cutest blogs; I like that pretty girl’s image and your color scheme. Great contents too. Unfortunately your comments were off, so I could not leave one. If I may, I would suggest you add some images of vacuum cleaners when you blog about them/ features. Hope to see you again, I enjoyed the chat:)

Great post Stella – not just the interview, you did a wonderful job with the questions you asked! I was one of the score who dabbled in affiliate marketing when I first launched my blog – but I would be the first to emphasize that I never took it seriously and that’s because I make the mistake of opting for digital products and I never could find any that I felt good about promoting – let alone having my name linked to them. I was attracted to your article because I’ve been thinking about giving it another try now that my blog is better established – and I think when I start my research this time I’ll look into physical products. Thanks!

Hi Marquita:
A big thank you for coming around to read and also leave a comment. You know, I also got talked into a business I had no passion in and so I was never proud enough to promote it, and wanted out a few months after getting in. That was one of the reasons I got to start this blog (more about it in my “About Me” Page).

So, I reckon well with your point because I’ve been there. So, like you I started a small group “Passion to Profits” The truth is that the fact that we are all doing business using digital platforms does not mean that we will all do well marketing digital products. It’s best to stay in your lane and follow your passion – because with blogging to drive that business, buyers are more attracted to passionate marketers/ salesmen. Only with passion, can you have lots of interest to blog with intensity to your target market.

Passion never feels stressful or like working, and it’s easy to take it seriously even before money starts coming in.

I’m happy you found courage to leave the business you had no passion in; a lot of people are still stuck in, dreaming of success.

Now that your blog is established is a good time to start again experimenting with affiliate marketing and with only selling the affiliate products/ services you are passionate about. Good that you’ve already identified physical goods – follow your heart and find one good course that teaches you how to roll your sleeves and get your hands dirty pretty fast – no theories.

Fantastic interview! Lynn is the go-to for anything surrounding affiliate marketing. She is so giving with information and this interview is no exception. Love especially what she said about comments. They are the place you begin relationships with your list but if you want them on your list, you gotta ASK! Great one

You’re right, she is so open to give tons of information. Her tutorial style posts are awesome, in fact her blog is like the affiliate marketing classroom.

Me too, that comments question is one I hope many people will connect with – she had talked about that in her blog and another interview and you know with her experience one has to stop, think and see the wisdom in what she says. I also had to do a personal blog commenting plan and blogged about it.

You’re so right Martha, speaking from your wealth of IM experience – about using it as a springboard to build relationships – exact, same thing Naomi Dunford said in her email lesson today.

Thanks for reading, I appreciate that you found time out of your launch season, to come around. Means a lot to me. Will return the visit later. Enjoy your week!

If you’ve been following Lynn, she’s big on starting small and says you do not need much investments to do affiliate marketing. I started and tested (the teachers’ tutorials) and made a few hundreds my first month recently. I’m looking to test physical goods too.

It’s good you have your hobby blog to test the waters:) Thanks for reading and volunteering to share it. I appreciate all and owe you a return match:)

I agree with you – comments, like other forms of social proofs (social media shares, subscriber counts, RSS readers counts etc), are a component of point #1 (to continually gain credibility). That’s the point Lynn was making.

Again, click-through rates also give an indication of a blog’s success, as a business tool.

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